Casey and Me

16062014

It’s been a long time since I knew Casey. He was a good and honorable and decent man — beyond his fame. He sent me books and tapes by Tony Robbins and urged me to learn the lessons. He also encouraged me, always gently as was his nature, to become a vegetarian. I joked with him that I knew he was right in principle…but I had such a great meat-oriented Jewish upbringing and just wasn’t going to give it up! I was a good human in other ways I would joke with him, but meat I wasn’t going to give up. He would smile…but kept advocating vegan…gently….

We connected because of the Middle East. He had seen me on some TV program talking about the Jewish Committee on the Middle East. He got in touch through JCOME as did others in what now seems such a long time ago. He was interested in the Palestinian cause and wanted the U.S. to play a positive role in bringing about an Arab-Israeli peace. He was aware and proud of his Lebanese ancestry…but he was always cautious how he presented it and didn’t want to risk becoming Hollywood controversial (a la Ed Asner for instance). Then, tragically I thought, he like others got sucked into the “Oslo Peace Process”, misguided as were so many others by the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) and other Arab-American establishment groups which used and abused him.

Then the tragic family-feuding end in recent weeks to a wonderful, decent, caring, principled, man and human being.